When dancers Kokila Hariram and her husband Gautam Sundararajan proposed to start an academy for modern dance forms in Chennai in 1998, they were refused even a sizeable space. Twenty-five years later, they have the city dance to nimble pirouettes and fearless hip hop. Former students of the academy have even gone on to study dance theory in universities abroad.
The Academy of Modern Danse (AMD), started by Kokila and Gautam, is the city’s first formal Western dance school. As the academy completes twenty five years, its legacy traces the coming together of two individuals who wanted to gift their beloved city the language of modern dance.
Tracing the years
When Kokila’s father was posted in Chennai for work, Kokila couldn’t resist the beckoning of the marley. On stumbling upon a ballet school at the Russian Cultural Centre, Kokila enrolled under an Anglo-Indian lady who taught ballet. In the months that followed, she met Gautam. “I used to be Gautam’s proxy when he used to go on dates with his girlfriends! Later along the way we fell in love, and I knew that sometime in the future Chennai might become home,” remembers Kokila.
The school was established in 1998 on January 18 at the Russian Cultural Centre. “Chennai in the Nineties understood only careers in engineering, law, or medicine. After a lot of rejection, we got a space at the Russian Cultural Centre at Kasturi Ranga Road which continues to be our address, “ recalls Gautam.
“I wanted to create a space where students could take exams, understand the dance forms, take it forward, and celebrate it,“ says Kokila who has a bachelors degree in performing arts. “When we started, people would laugh at me and ask questions like, exams for dance? Why would you do that? Now I actually have people coming in and asking me if I have certificate courses in ballet or ballroom,” says Kokila as she talks about how the city has changed in the past 25 years. To get the academy up and running, Kokila specialised in modern dance in Singapore. Her two-year specialisation was followed by a certification by the Commonwealth Society of Teachers of Dancing, Australia.
Kokila grew up in Brunei where her mother has been running a Bharatanatyam dance school for 50 years. Her father, now 70-plus, flew down to Chennai recently to dance with his daughter at the academy’s first show held recently after the pandemic. Kokila and her father’s spontaneous jig at the show resembled John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s iconic ‘twist’ in Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction. “Parents of students break away from the audience and join us to shake a leg at most of our performances. And this time, at the finale of our show, the audience screamed ‘once more’ ‘once more’,” says Gautam.
As the academy grew, Kokila and Gautam have held dance workshops in Madurai, Tiruchi, Kerala and Coimbatore. Kokila also accompanies her students or “my kids” as she likes to call them to Asia Pacific Dance Championships, held outside the country.
“In the last twenty five years, half the city has walked through my doors and walked out. I have had students come and tell me that their parents learned ballroom and ballet at the academy and I am so proud of them,” beams Kokila.
